Excerpt Part 2: Cairo, Egypt

It ended up being expensive, but we decided to ride the camels around the Pyramids. Sure, it was clichéd. Sure, I was blowing my entire Cairo tourist budget, but it did end up being enjoyable. Even if my balls felt like they’d been jack-hammered, especially when the camels decided to run down sand-dunes. Each downhill step was a blow to my future virility. Girls would enjoy the friction though, our guide confirming this by saying that this was his chief pick-up tool. He had three wives so it must be successful, which led to Mitya demanding how he juggled the rigours of polygamy. He called himself Jimmy, when that clearly wouldn’t have been his name, probably as a way to ingratiate himself with tourists. Maybe it’s like how a lot of non-Western families give their dogs Western names like Lassie or Julie or Tim.

We went up to the three Pyramids, on the back of these camels, guided by Jimmy and a little kid who shared the camel with Mitya. Much to Mitya’s chagrin. The desert air demolished the city sounds, as if there was nothing else nearby, despite the city and its effluent being part of the Pyramids’ aura. We saw the Sphinx with its missing nose, its steely gaze only more disconcerting because of Napoleon’s supposed target practice, and clambered up a hill to get an overview of the whole field. The whole area was the only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World, one of the most iconic buildings in human history. Its coarse stones had been caressed by my fingers. It felt banal though, I’d seen all the photos of their brilliance, read the accounts of their mysterious power, seen the tourist brochures, that the Pyramids weren’t new, immense, breathtaking. It was scarcely believable sure, but it felt like I’d just ticked it off on a list of tourist attractions to see. That was it. I could have spent the time talking to somebody.

Mitya felt compelled to ask the guide if he’d seen a haka before, seeing as Jimmy knew that New Zealanders were called “Kiwis” and said phrases like “sweet as” to us, rather than ask “sweet as what?”. Before the guide could respond, Mitya said “we’ll do a haka to show you”. Ivan and I dissented. Mitya was about to rip off his shirt but realised that while he couldn’t back out after his promise, he didn’t have to display his bare chest to the desert and the tourists taking their hundreds of photos. He demonstrated an awful rendition by himself, mostly wrong, pronouncing his Maori with a clipped fury and botching the dance with puppet-like movements. His cheeks blazed at doing it alone, but his enthusiasm wasn’t dimmed, and the guide and his little helper boy looked on with polite amusement at Mitya’s ferocious, pitiful version, giving polite applause at the end. This is a man who complains about “Maoris” and “political correctness” back home.

He wasn’t impressed at our reticence, and mouthed off to us when we were back on our camel train. “I can’t believe you guys didn’t join in the haka. How many New Zealanders have the opportunity to display their culture here, at the Pyramids? You guys are pussies.” We just ignored him. He knew we were both quite introverted, so he must have half-expected it, but I wanted to say “would you have done it visiting a marae?”

At the end, we knew that we had to tip our guide, but the others had little to no change, only lonely coins, so I was forced to give him a 20 Egyptian pound note, so he didn’t think that these fiercely proud New Zealand guys were also cheap bastards. I also knew that the others wouldn’t pay me back for this, given New Zealand’s lack of tipping culture, and their inherent cheapness, but I knew that our guide would probably only get paid on tips. I also threw some coins to the little kid.